


July 2005

by helsinkibaby



Series: The Pieces of my Life [18]
Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, The West Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Het, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-15
Updated: 2014-08-15
Packaged: 2018-02-13 07:46:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2142858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Greg shows Ellie around Vegas and meets a couple of friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	July 2005

It is the first day of July, the height of summer, and Greg can’t stop smiling. It might have something to do with the fact that he doesn’t have to go to work today, indeed is officially still on leave. It might have something to do with the fact that only yesterday he paid a flying visit to San Gabriel, where his mother welcomed him with beaming smile and open arms, and not a few tears of happiness. But he knows that the main reason he’s smiling is the woman at his side, the woman whose hand is in his, who is smiling up at him with the same wide smile that’s on his own face, a smile that he doesn’t think he’ll ever get sick of seeing. She’s worn that smile for two weeks, ever since his spur of the moment proposal, and even though he’s known her for over ten years, he can’t think of a time when he’s ever seen her happier.

Just like he can’t think of a time when he’s ever been happier.

Which is why he’s smiling as he walks along the Strip, hand in hand with Ellie, because he can’t believe that he’s here like this, with her. They’ve never done this, he’s never shown Ellie the sights of the town, because the one and only time that she’s visited, he was recuperating from the effects of the lab explosion, and they spent most of their time in his apartment. Today though, is the first day of the rest of their lives, the first day of their new life together in Las Vegas, and he and Ellie barely unpacked before he dragged her outside, eager to show her – and the Secret Service agents shadowing them – her new home. She laughs breathlessly as he keeps up his breakneck-paced tour guide speech, looking around her in wonder, eyes taking in every last scrap of neon and glitz. He’s not so taken with the surroundings though – aside from the fact that he’s seen it all before, he only has eyes for her.

He’s so lost in her, in fact, that he doesn’t see Nick at first, only knows that he is there when his friend taps his shoulder, saying, “Hey man, I didn’t know you were back.” Greg turns, sees not only Nick standing before him, but Sara at his side, both wearing CSI windbreakers and curious looks, neither of which are lost on Ellie if the tightening of her grip on his is anything to go by. He can sense the tension that’s suddenly entered her body, knows that she’s worried about meeting his friends, is very aware that there’s a large part of his life that she’s never had any part of until now. He’s not worried about it though, because he loves Ellie, and he knows that she’s going to be fine, that everyone in his life is going to love her just as much as he does.

He tightens his grip on Ellie’s hand, more to reassure her than as a show of any nerves on his part, and meets Nick’s gaze without blinking. “Just got back in this morning,” he replies, tugging Ellie ever so gently closer to him, a move that doesn’t go unnoticed by either Nick or Sara. “Ellie, this is Nick Stokes and Sara Sidle.” He indicates each with a wave of his hand, registering the flare of surprise in Nick’s eyes, and too late he remembers that twice Nick has heard him mention Ellie’s name. Each time was only in passing, but Nick’s a damn good CSI and he’s got a memory like an elephant. He nods quickly, to confirm Nick’s suspicions, a move that has Nick’s face relaxing into a smile, but Greg knows that this won’t last long, not with his next words. “Guys,” he says, and he can’t keep that smile off his face. “This is Ellie.” A pause, brief but significant. “My fiancée.”

The looks on Nick and Sara’s faces are nothing short of priceless; initially blank, rapidly transmuting into stunned shock when the word registers, and Greg laughs, sliding an arm around Ellie’s waist. Nick, characteristically, recovers his voice first, but he can’t do anything about the surprise in his face when he says, “Fiancée?” Even he must realise how that sounds, because a dull blush races across his cheeks, and Ellie laughs, holds out her left hand as evidence, the diamond solitaire he and Charlie had picked out – and hadn’t that been interesting, making sure that they weren’t followed by a watching media, who were well aware of Charlie’s relationship with Zoey – winking in the light. “I’m sorry,” Nick continues, evidently remembering his manners, and Greg opens his mouth to tell him not to worry about it, is surprised when Ellie beats him to it.

“It’s ok,” she says. “I think we’ve surprised a lot of people.” Which Greg thinks might just be the understatement of the year, and this without a lot of people knowing. So far, they’ve only told their families, their closest friends, and her father’s most trusted staff, who, for the past two weeks have been preparing a plan, are getting themselves into a position to break the news to an unsuspecting public. Which is not exactly something that he’s looking forward to; after all, Ellie is notoriously the most camera-shy of the Bartlet daughters, the one who’s been most successful at keeping her life out of the public eye. The announcement that she’s getting married is doubtless going to be met by a firestorm of publicity, which is why they’re in Las Vegas now, getting used to their life together, settling in and making plans of their own, before their lives aren’t their own any more.

Nick’s laugh brings him back to reality, his friend exchanging a glance with Sara, who herself is wearing an expression of mingled surprise and curiosity. “Congratulations,” Sara says, surprising Greg by stepping forward and hugging him, shaking Ellie’s hand.

“Yeah, man…” Nick, prompted by Sara’s example, shakes Greg’s hand, then Ellie’s. “That’s great news.” He looks back and forth between them. “You told Grissom yet?”

Greg shakes his head. “I was going to call him tonight,” he says. “Let him know I was back… figure out when he wants me back to work.”

Nick snickers. “Try yesterday,” he says, rolling his eyes, and when Nick looks to Sara to see if Nick’s just kidding, he receives an apologetic looking nod in response.

“We’ve been pulling doubles all week,” she tells him, and he sighs, looking over at Ellie.

“Looks like showing you around is going to have to wait,” he says, and she shakes her head.

“It’s ok,” she says. “I’m just surprised they haven’t called you before now.”

The words have Greg shifting on his feet, because Grissom has actually called him to see how things were going, and while he’s never asked the question, has never demanded that Greg get back to Vegas, it’s been there, unspoken, every time. He’s just never told Ellie that, because he thought she had enough to deal with, and he can’t believe that she’s never called him on it before now.

When her jaw drops and her eyes narrow, he knows that she’s worked it out, and she fairly glares at him. “You mean… they have called you?” At his sheepish nod, she slaps at his shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She seems to have forgotten that Nick and Sara are there, staring at them with now amused expressions, but Greg is very aware of it, catching her hand in mid-slap, holding onto it tightly. “Honey… we’ll talk about this later,” he says through gritted teeth, and she doesn’t take her eyes off him when she answers.

“You bet we will,” she says, sounding way more like her mother than Greg’s really comfortable with, and Nick laughs.

“Man, I like this girl already.”

The tone of his voice, the smirk on his face, makes it clear that he’s teasing, but there’s undoubtedly an element of truth there for all that, and that’s what Greg chooses to focus on, looking down at Ellie fondly. “Was there ever a doubt?” he wonders, directing the words more at Ellie than at Nick, and when she looks up at him, torn between glaring at him and grinning at him, the world fades away for a second.

It comes back with the sound of a throat being cleared, and Greg looks over to see Sara and Nick looking at him awkwardly. “Look,” Sara says, “We’re going to get going… we’re just here to get some food before heading back to the lab…”

Up until now, Greg hasn’t been hungry, but the mere mention of food has his stomach rumbling. “I could do food,” he says, tilting his head at Ellie. “Could you do food?”

She laughs, shaking her head. “I knew you were going to say that.”

At the same time, Sara says, “We don’t want to intrude…”

“Sure we do.” Nick’s confident words have Sara’s head whipping around with a glare, and Ellie’s jaw drops with surprise. Greg’s not surprised; he was expecting something like this, and he actually welcomes the honesty. He’s about to tell Nick that, but doesn’t get a chance when his friend continues. “Come on, Sara,” Nick says. “The girl’s going to marry Greg… I think we owe it to ourselves to tell her as many stories about him as we possibly can…”

Nick’s voice trails off mock-menacingly, and Ellie looks very interested all of a sudden. “You know, I am kind of hungry…” she says, and Greg looks at all three of them, feeling very nervous, wondering if this meeting was such a good idea after all.

“I think I’ve just lost my appetite.”

Lost appetite or not, he’s dragged to a restaurant further down the Strip, finds himself sitting in a booth with Ellie at his side, holding his hand underneath the table. He can feel the diamond of her engagement ring pressing against his palm, and it makes him smile as he remembers the look on her face when he gave it to her, remembers lying in bed with her later that night, hardly able to believe the change that had come over his life in a couple of days.

They order quickly, then Nick leans across the table, looking at Ellie curiously and Greg knows that the interrogation is about to begin. “So, Ellie,” he says, making no attempt to hide his intentions. “When did you and Greg meet?”

“Jeez, Nick, at least let the girl have some food,” Sara mutters, raising her water glass to her lips, and Nick shoots her, then Ellie, a placating look.

“Now, now… We may have just met… I, however, think that if Ellie is going to become Mrs Greg Sanders, then there are certain questions she needs to answer…”

Which is the kind of interrogation that Greg knows makes Ellie extremely uncomfortable, so he’s surprised when he hears her giggle beside him. “If I’d known I was going to have an interview, I would have brought my résumé,” she says with a grin.

The quip makes Sara grin too, which vanishes when she looks over at Nick again. “Ignore him,” she instructs Ellie.

“Please,” Greg interjects, and Ellie shakes her head, reaching for her water glass.

“I can handle a few questions,” she says, shooting him a devilish grin that has beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead, because Ellie knows all manner of tales about him that he really doesn’t want spread around the lab. Still though, there’s a part of him that’s proud of the way she’s handling this, because meeting new people has never been one of Ellie’s favourite things, nor does she like being the focus of attention. You’d never know that to look at her here though, and he’s known her long enough to know that she wants to make a good impression on Nick and Sara. He’s also known Nick and Sara for long enough to know that the little they know of her, they already like, and he squeezes her hand to let her know that. And, if she should interpret it as a warning, well then, so much the better.

“Well, you should know that I’m a doctor, working in medical research in Baltimore… and that we actually met in college,” she says, to Nick’s obvious surprise. “It was my freshman year… his sophomore… so that was… what… eleven years?” Greg confirms the maths with a nod, quite amused at the slack-jawed astonishment across the table.

“That’s when you began dating?” Sara asks, a good assumption, but not the right one, and Ellie shakes her head.

“Not right away… not until that spring.”

“She was crazy about me the whole time.” Greg feels it’s important to point that out, and it earns him a fond glare from his fiancée.

“And he was completely clueless,” she says. “By the time he finally got his act together, everyone was asking what took him so long.”

Greg tilts his head as the obvious parallel occurs to him. “Not unlike lately,” he says, fingers sliding down to cover her engagement ring, and she nods.

“True.”

There’s another moment where they’re lost in their own little world; this time, Nick brings them back. “But… you haven’t been dating since then… right?” He sounds doubtful, and Greg can’t blame him, because he’s been living anything but the life of a monk since he’s been in Vegas, and he shakes his head to reassure his friend.

“No,” Ellie says. “When Greg graduated, he went to grad school in New York… I still had a year to do in Stanford, and we didn’t want to do the long distance thing…”

“You didn’t think it was a good idea,” Greg reminds her. “I thought different.”

Ellie rolls her eyes; he’s told her that many times. She doesn’t even address it when she speaks, just says, “So we called it a day… stayed friends…” She pauses then, and he knows she’s thinking of all the times during the last few years when they were distinctly more than friends. “Most of the time,” she jokes, and Greg’s fingers tighten around hers.

“We tried to stay friends,” he amends, more serious than he’s ever been around Nick and Sara, and from the way they’re looking at him, with amazed and interested curiosity, they’re finding this side of his personality something of a revelation. “But there was just something there… I just couldn’t get her out of my system.” He holds Ellie’s gaze for a long moment, then looks back at Nick and Sara, grins at them in an effort to break the serious moment. “And of course, everyone knew it except for the two of us… most people who have known us a long time heard the news and had the same reaction.”

This time, he and Ellie speak in concert with the four words they’ve become very familiar with in the last two weeks.

“It’s about damn time.”

They both laugh, as do Nick and Sara, even if their smiles are decidedly more confused, a little bemused, truth be told. Greg can anticipate what the next question is going to be, and he’s not surprised when Nick’s the one who asks it, realising that they’re taking it in turns to ask questions, just like any good investigative team, just like he’s seen them do untold times when he’s standing in that little observation room, watching them interrogate a suspect. “So… when did you two…” He doesn’t finish the question, makes a little motion between the two of them, and Greg shrugs, taking up the tale.

“Start dating again?” he asks, and Nick nods. “Two weeks ago… right after I asked her to marry me.”

There’s a stunned silence at the table, with Nick and Sara looking at one another, as if trying to decide if Greg is telling them the truth. Ellie seems to take pity on them, telling them, “See, Greg dropped everything two weeks ago to come to Washington…”

“Washington?” Sara asked. “I thought you were from Baltimore?”

“New Hampshire actually,” Ellie replied. “I work in Baltimore, out of Johns Hopkins… but my dad works in Washington, that’s where my parents were two weeks ago… when my mom had a heart attack…”

Nick’s mouth drops. “Ellie, we’re sorry…”

Ellie shakes her head, waves a hand, and when she speaks, her voice is downright breezy. Nick and Sara might be fooled, but Greg is looking at her closely, can see how much that attitude is costing her, feels it in the tension across her back and shoulders, in the tightening of her hand in his. He squeezes back, letting her know that he’s there for her, but doesn’t interrupt, lets her continue telling the story on her own terms. “It’s fine… she’s going to be fine,” she says. “But we didn’t know that… and one minute, I’m at the hospital, surrounded by family… and the next, I look up, and there he is.” She shoots him a smile that’s accompanied by another squeeze of the hand. “He stayed with us at the hospital… and when Mom was stable, and Dad sent us to the… to get some rest… he was there the whole time.”

She’s getting a little choked up, so Greg takes up the tale. “And somewhere in the middle of all that… I realised that I couldn’t live without her,” he says simply. “So I asked her to marry me.” He shrugs. “There didn’t seem to be any point in wasting any more time.”

Nick is grinning, and Greg can imagine how his friend is plotting to spread that all around the CSI lab, which isn’t all that surprising to him. What is surprising though, is the smile on Sara’s face, more tender than he’s used to, and he’d swear that she’s really touched by the tale. “Have you set a date yet?” she asks, and Greg shakes his head.

“Mom’s been talking about it though,” Ellie says, and, off his surprised look, she nods. “Trust me,” she says to Nick and Sara with a grin, “Once she heard the news, the doctors were amazed at her progress… I think she’s already got it all worked out.”

“So you’re telling me we do have a date?” Greg asks, and Ellie rolls her eyes.

“Not as such… though with everything that’s coming up next year, Dad’s voting for either next summer or sometime before January 2007… and since Mom’s got her heart set on a Rose Garden wedding, I’m leaning towards next summer.”

This is genuinely the first that Greg’s heard of this, and he’s imagining the various reactions to that little bit of news. “Man… Mom’s head is going to spin.”

Ellie shoots him a lopsided grin. “Of course, Dad says that if we do make it some time after November, he knows exactly what we should serve as a main course…”

Her lips are twitching, eyes dancing, and Greg tilts his head curiously. “Do I even want to know?”

A beaming smile splits Ellie’s face, complete with giggle that’s music to his ears when she replies, “Lame duck.”

It takes him a moment to get it, and when he does, he tilts his head back towards the ceiling, gets out a groan. “Your dad has got the worst jokes in the world,” he declares, something that makes Ellie giggle again. “Seriously… is there anything we can do to not have him do the father of the bride speech?”

Even as it says it, he knows it’s a futile hope. “I think Toby’s already working on it,” she tells him. “There’s hope.”

But not much of it, he wants to tell her, and he would, but Nick chimes in, his face by now hopelessly confused. “Toby?” he asks, and Ellie nods.

“He’s the Communications Director,” she says, and too late, something registers on her face, and her gaze swings back to Greg.

He meets her eyes for just a moment, flashes her a quick grin, then looks back to Nick and Sara, who are staring at one another, eyes narrowed in suspicion. Greg knows what those looks mean, that they’re well on their way to putting the clues together, that indeed they already have, just haven’t quite realised it yet. And when Nick starts speaking, Greg knows that it’s only a matter of time.

“Let me get this straight…” he says slowly. “Your dad is from New Hampshire, but he works in Washington… where he has a Communications Director… and a Rose Garden?” Ellie nods slowly, and Nick looks from her to Greg and back again. “You know… you never told us your last name.”

Ellie’s shoulders rise and fall as she takes a deep breath, and both Greg’s hands go tight around hers. “Bartlet,” she says, and she does not blink, and Greg, right then and there, is hard-pressed to think of a time when she’s looked lovelier.

If Nick and Sara looked surprised when he announced Ellie as his fiancée, they look even more surprised now, and there’s a part of Greg that really, really wishes he had a camera. “Bartlet,” Sara echoes. “As in President Bartlet?”

Ellie nods. “He’s my father.”

Nick’s head swings back and forth like a spectator at a tennis match. “The President’s daughter?” he asks, incredulity ringing in every word as his gaze settles on Greg. “You’re marrying the President’s daughter?”

“No.” Greg doesn’t even have to think about the answer. “I’m marrying Ellie. She just happens to be the President’s daughter.” At that, she turns a beaming smile on him, and he slips an arm around her waist, pulls her closer to him. She goes willingly, and Nick has the grace to look embarrassed.

“That’s not what I meant,” he begins, holding up his hands as if to ward off any upset. “It’s just… I mean, first you show up with a fiancée, then you drop this in? It’s a lot to take in.”

“We know.” Ellie’s the one who responds, and for someone who’s spent the last seven years railing against being Jed Bartlet’s daughter, she sounds as if she means it. “It’s a shock for you… but it’s sudden for us too. That’s why we’re keeping things low-key for a little while… get ourselves sorted out here before we go public with it.”

Greg nods. “We’ll tell people… and by the end of the week, the White House are going to announce it… we just wanted some us time first.”

“And Greg’s protective of me,” Ellie says dryly, with a roll of her eyes, her hand going to his knee, patting it lightly to take any sting out of her words. “But we’re working on that.”

He wants to tell her that that’s a trait she’ll never rid him of, moreover that she actually likes that about him, but he bites his tongue, hoping the long suffering shake of his head conveys what he thinks of her words. Instead, he fills Nick and Sara in on what he’s been doing for the last couple of weeks, ever since he dropped everything to fly to Washington. They linger over their meal, only leaving when Nick and Sara have to get back to work, and as they make their way back along the Strip, Ellie squeezes his hand, grins up at him. “I think they like you,” he tells her, and she laughs.

“Was there ever a doubt?” she quips, and if he didn’t know her better, he’d think that she’d really been that confident all the time.

Just like earlier though, he doesn’t call her on it. Instead, he lets go of her hand so that he can wrap his arm around her shoulders, pull her closer to him. “Never,” he says. “Come on… let’s go home.”

Ellie laughs again. “I thought you wanted to show me the sights.”

He gives her a grin that he’s sure is only a little above a leer; when he sees the look she’s giving him, he thinks it might not be above anything. “Later,” is all he says, but she doesn’t object, in fact, she looks very much like this is exactly what she wants to do.

More than that, she looks completely at home here, in Vegas, talking with his friends, and for the first time in his life, Greg is able to agree with John, admit that he was right all along – he and Ellie absolutely should have done this sooner. Of course, the fact that John was right all along means that he’s never going to let Greg hear the end of it, that he’s going to be unbearable.

But Greg doesn’t care, because John was right, and Ellie is here with him, and it’s perfect.


End file.
